The Bay City Times

October 24, 2008

Stupak for another term in U.S. 1st District

Michigan's vast 1st Congressional District has a real race, for once.

From Ironwood, in the Upper Peninsula and another time zone away, to Bay County, voters in Michigan's sprawling 1st District have a choice Nov. 4 between two Yoopers - Bart Stupak, a Menominee Democrat, and Tom Casperson, an Escanaba Republican.

Both have been storming across the district nonstop as the campaign closes in on its final week.

Casperson, a third-generation logging truck company owner, is finishing his third and final term as a member of the Michigan House of Representatives. He thinks government is too big and too intrusive. ''Regulations are killing us,'' he says.

Stupak, a former Michigan state trooper, is seeking a ninth two-year term in Congress. On the issues, he is engaged, and on point.

A deeper thinker than a lot of his colleagues in Washington, Stupak can get hung up on principle. That was the case when this representative from a district that touches upon three of the Great Lakes voted against the widely hailed Great Lakes Compact to protect that invaluable resource. Stupak wanted a committee report clarifying that Great Lakes water is not a commodity. He was probably right, but he didn't get that language in the law.

Nevertheless, Stupak does represent his district well, with a practical approach. He's helped secure federal funding, for example, for Saginaw River dredging, new aircraft maintenance hangars for the booming former Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda and a plant for the eastern U.P. that will be the largest in the nation to make ethanol fuel from wood and grass.

Once rather discouraged by a domineering Republican majority, Stupak clearly has his mojo back.

On Nov. 4, Bart Stupak is our choice for Michigan's 1st District seat in Congress.